Monday, July 30, 2007

Home not home

Frank Yallop was pretty unhappy that the Galaxy's game versus Chivas was held at the Coliseum.

"Dallas gets two home games, Houston gets two home games, DC gets two home games, but we get one home game and one away game. It was terrible. Ninety percent of the crowd there was for Chivas."

The Galaxy weren't able to play in their home stadium because of the X-Games. It wasn't, as some have supposed, moved because AEG wanted to make more money. The X-Games contract is a longstanding one.

However, money could have been the motivator for switching the opponent. Pachuca was originally scheduled for the Coliseum and Pachuca doesn't have the drawing power that Chivas has. The matches were switched, which meant the Galaxy faced a more full-strength Chivas side than FC Dallas did.

The last time the Galaxy played in the Coliseum (2005), they had thousands of fans cheering them to victory. That's because they played a doubleheader of Chivas USA/Galaxy and Chivas/Club America, and the America fans got an even bigger turnout than the Chivas ones. They cheered for the Galaxy. The stadium was rocking that night.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Isn't this a moot point? Yallop and the rest of the world knew ahead of time about the x-games. Who is he really upset at? The fans that decided to stay home because they "didn't want to drive to the ghetto" or AEG for making a contract with the X-games many years ago? Not sure.

A.C. said...

I think Yallop was unhappy at the scheduling - but you're right, there didn't seem to be a lot that could be done about that.